Juan Modesto

Juan Modesto (1906-1969), born Juan Guilloto Leon, was a General of the Spanish Republican Army during the Spanish Civil War.

Biography
Juan Guilloto Leon was born in 1906 in Cadiz, Spain, working as a sawmill before joining the Spanish Legion in Morocco. In 1930, he joined the Communist Party of Spain (PSE), becoming a commander of the Antifascist Worker and Peasant Militias (MAOC) paramilitaries of the party. Modesto became the commander of the elite Fifth Regiment of Republican Spain in October 1936 at the start of the Spanish Civil War, rising to Lieutenant-Colonel in 1937 and General in 1939. As a colonel, he led the Army of the Ebro after 26 August 1938, and on 2 March 1939 he took command of the Central Army following the Catalonia Offensive. When Segismundo Casado led a coup against the republic in 1939, Modesto left for the Soviet Union and served with the Red Army and communist Bulgarian forces during World War II. He died in Prague in 1969.